How To Tie The Simplest (But Also Most Useful) Knot In The World

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http://paulkirtley.co.uk/ The multi-talented overhand knot. Learn it. Use it.

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Tags: How-to (Media Genre),knot,overhand knot,overhand,single fisherman's knot,double fisherman's knot,overhand loop,stopper knot,paracord,bushcraft,survival,outdoors,wilderness,Scouting,Scouts,outdoor life,tips and tricks,Paul Kirtley,Frontier Bushcraft

Video Transcription

hi there poor Kelly here author of poor kelly's blogged the leading source of wilderness bushcraft advice and information on the net and found her a frontier bushcraft the award-winning bushcraft school now in teaching people on courses and leading people on expeditions what I find is that a lot of people are not particularly confident with their knots they think there are a lot to learn they see them all as distinct knots and they don't know where to start the thing is there are a few knots that if you know them will get you a long way and they form the basis of learning other knots as well and one of the most important ones to note is also this most simple knot to tie it's the simplest in the world that you could think of and most people actually do already know how to tie if you ask them to tie your knot this is the knot that they will tie the knot in question is the overhand knot and if I were to ask you to tie the simplest knot you could think of you'd likely tie that knot and that's the overhand knot and that can be used to tie just a simple stopper in the end of a piece of cord like so that can be useful in various applications also we can tie a loop with it so we double the cord over create a Bight like so and then we tie that same knot again the overhand knot just with the cord doubled over we create a fixed loop like so the sun's coming out nicely now you can see that very very clearly and if we want to strengthen that knot with an extra stopper to stop the tail slipping through the knot we can put another overhand knot there it's highly unlikely to slip through but that's something we could do and again there's lots of applications for loops for hanging things for fixing things or what-have-you very very useful things now to do and all done just with overhand knots

I might want to create a simple fix loop for a lanyard and that might be for example on something like this spoon here you can see I've got a little lanyard and that allows me to hang it on hang it up on a tree on a branch so it's not kicking around and just on the ground or getting lost and and that's just tied off with an overhand loop at the end and I'll show you how to do that so we've got our two ends of the cords that we want to want to tie off and we simply bring those together and we tie an overhand knot there in the end like so like so and there's our fixed end and there's our lanyard just like on the spoon very very simple we can make an even neater join than that or maybe we want a very strong join on a fixed lanyard like on a pocketknife like so and we don't want that knot to come and done and we also want it to be neat then we can we can use our overhand knot in a slightly different way to create what's known as a fisherman's knot let me just find the other end like so so I've got the two ends and rather than tying them off together like that like we did and with a spoon example here we're going to bring them parallel and I'm going to tie that around here like so and through there and you'll see that that is an overhand knot if I pull that through it's just an overhand knot it's the first knot that we tied in this video overhand knot but it's tied around the other cord I'll do that again so you can see it again so we tie that around like so and through and into and so there and then we're going to do a symmetrical thing on the other side tie another overhand knot around the other cord so I've got one knot tied in the end of each piece of cord around there the other piece respectively and then we can pull those together and they'll mate up very nicely and butt up against it then I can pull that really tight and that's going to be very difficult to come undone I can make these tails these tails here even shorter and that will be a very neat joint indeed and something that's going to be very difficult to come undone that's exactly what we want on our important tools we want maybe a pocket knife fix to a clip on our belt or something that

not going to come and done that's what we're going to use there we can do a variation on that that's even even a little bit nicer looking and I'll show you how to do that Suns gone in again now unfortunately but we go around we can do our single fisherman's there we do a overhand knot there now a little variation we're going to go around twice this is no longer an overhand knot but we go through there so we've gone round twice and through like so Suns coming out again and we're going to go round once and twice and through here so those of you that done any climbing if you do the stopper knot that you do after you're rethreaded figure-of-eight that's effectively what you're tying here and then you're pulling those two in together and that's very very neat and very tidy and even better in terms of in terms of fixing it as a nice neat lanyard finish than the than the single fisherman's and that's exactly what I've got here on my balcony even and that has been tied for several years it's never come undone and I know that that's going to be secured on there for my it for my pocketknife really good not to know and then one more thing that we could use the the overhand knot for just undo this you can see even I didn't pull it that hard but it starts become quite difficult to undo it takes a bit of unpicking

we can create sliding not a slip knot we take the end of the piece of cord and then we're going to tie an overhand knot around like so like that and that creates a slip knot there and if we want to be doubly sure that that cord that tail is not going to slip through the knot then I can tie just an overhand knot in the end here a stopper knot like the first knot that we tied beginning of this video there and that's not going to pull through but I've still got my slider so that my slip knot there and that can be useful in some in some snares some snare designs if you're making traps with natural cordage then that's that's something that can be used to good effect but again just requires a very simple knot used in two different two different ways

so just to recap around and over and through that is one of the simplest knots to tie if not the simplest knot to tie and yeah it's also one of the most useful and if you know that one provides a really good foundation for learning all your other knots I hope that serves you well the overhand knot really is extremely useful and you can find all sorts of applications for it and all sorts of variants on on a theme and let us know in the comments underneath the video what you use this knot for if you've got any interesting uses and if you like this video please go over to Paul curly coat UK where you'll find many more articles and videos giving you really good tips and advice on your outdoor life bushcraft and survival skills and if you if you do go over there also make sure you sign up for my email newsletter because I send out regular tips and advice and also if you sign up but you'll get 20 free videos just like this one straight away I'll send you them straightaway so go over to Paul curly coat UK and check it out and thanks for watching the video I appreciate your attention and I'll see you on the next one